The book will be in our “warehouse” soon and shipped out before the end of the month.

We are currently working on creating both iPad- and Kindle-friendly versions of “With the Grain,” which we will sell through our site and will be DRM-free, as always. That process usually takes four to six weeks, so stay tuned.

Additions to the Blog
Look at the right-hand rail of the blog, and you’ll notice some additions there you might find helpful (or you might ignore).

1. We’ve reorganized the categories and now show how many blog posts are in each category, that number is in (parentheses).

2. A section called “Upcoming Events.” This shows where I’m teaching in the coming months, plus woodworking shows where Lost Art Press will have a booth. Even if you never leave your cave, this can be useful to you. When you send me an e-mail and you wonder why I’m not replying, and then you send me 10 more frantic crazy-sounding follow-ups, you might check the calendar and say: “Oh, he’s overseas.”

3. A section called “Current.” This is more for fun, especially if you like books, music or beer. I’ll be updating this section to let you know what book I’m currently editing or writing. Plus, it will list the books I’m reading – it will usually be a woodworking book. (Right now, however, I’m reading mindless zombie fiction, “World War Z,” which is the only known antidote for editing 18th-century French translations.) Plus, you can find what I’m listening to, building and drinking (though not all at the same time).

I love it. L’Art du Menuisier and zombies. Our hero takes time out from writing to slay evil in all it’s incarnations be it poor joinery technique or the reanimated dead forever yearning for the taste of human flesh…..

I like Ale, and listen to Spanish Guitar music – usually very loud. I’m not very good at hand tool woodworking but I AM going to get much better. I’d like to take a basic class from you because I must be developing bad habits. I’ve watched all of your DVDs.

Who says “World War Z” is mindless?…picked it off the floor of my English Literature major daughter’s room and thought it was a great read…”Zombies forever!”….O.k., maybe just an adequate interlude until “With the Grain” shows up….

My Personal Site & Gallery

Machine guards are supposed to protect us from harm, but there are times when they can turn against you. The worst injury I’ve ever received from a machine was cutting my hands on the anti-kickback pawls while installing my table saw’s guard. Yesterday I ran into trouble on my jointer with disastrous results. The collar that controls the height of the guard […]

If you design furniture or work a lot with curved parts, it’s difficult to function without a “drawing bow.” This simple jig – a stick and a string – allows you to lay out precise and large curves with only two hands. Before I could afford a commercial one (Lee Valley Tools makes an excellent one that I recommended in my 2017 Anarchist’s Gift Guide), I made […]

Metal-bodied planes require so little maintenance (aside from sharpening) that it’s easy to forget that they do need some love every year to work smoothly. Recently I borrowed a friend’s smoothing plane to demonstrate a cut and was struck by how easily her iron adjusted. It was like silk. I thought my plane was in good shape, but I was way off the mark. So a […]

If you’ve ever used a hand-cut rasp or a hand-filed saw you know how their tiny imperfections from handwork make the tool cut smoother. When it comes to making chairs, the small handmade imperfections are what give it its strength. If you build a lot of casework, I am sure you are grunting in displeasure. Accuracy makes all your pieces go together easily and […]